Foochowese (福州話, Foochow Romanized: ), also known as Fuzhou dialect, Foochow dialect, Foochow, Fuzhounese, or Fuzhouhua, is considered the standard dialect of Min Dong, which is a branch of Min Chinese mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province. Native speakers also call it Bàng-uâ (平話), meaning the language spoken in everyday life. In Singapore and Malaysia, the language is known as Hokchiu, which is the Min Dong pronunciation of Fuzhou (福州).
Although traditionally called a dialect, Foochowese is actually a separate language according to linguistic standards, because it is not mutually intelligible with other Min languages, let alone other Chinese languages. Therefore, whether Foochowese is a dialect or a language is highly disputable.
Centered in Fuzhou City, Foochowese mainly covers eleven cities and counties, viz.: Fuzhou (福州), Pingnan (屏南), Gutian (古田), Luoyuan (羅源), Minqing (閩清), Lianjiang (連江, Matsu included), Minhou (閩侯), Changle (長樂), Yongtai (永泰), Fuqing (福清) and Pingtan (平潭). Foochowese is also the second local language in northern and middle Fujian cities and counties, like Nanping (南平), Shaowu (邵武), Shunchang (順昌), Sanming (三明) and Youxi (尤溪).
Foochowese is also widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The city of Sibu in Malaysia is called "New Fuzhou" due to the influx of immigrants there in the early 1900s. Similarly, the language has spread to the USA, UK and Japan as a result of immigration in recent decades.
Foochowese came into being during the period somewhere between late Tang Dynasty and "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and has been considered by most as a Chinese dialect ever since. However, it is also worth noting that its substratum is constituted by large quantities of well-preserved Minyue vocabulary. In this sense, Foochowese is a de facto mixed language of Ancient Chinese and Minyue language.
The famous book Qī Lín Bāyīn (戚林八音, Foochow Romanized: Chék Lìng Báik-ĭng), which was compiled in the 17th century, is the first and the most full-scale rime book that provides a systematic guide to character reading for people speaking or learning Foochowese. It once served to standardize the language and is still widely quoted as an authoritative reference book in modern academic research in Chinese phonology.
In 1842, Fuzhou was open to Westerners as a treaty port after the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing. But due to the language barrier, however, the first Christian missionary base in this city did not take place without difficulties. In order to convert Fuzhou people, those missionaries found it very necessary to make a careful study of the Foochowese. Their most notable works are listed below:
By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Fuzhou society had been largely monolingual. But for decades the Chinese government has discouraged the use of the colloquial in school education and in media, so the number of Mandarin speakers has been greatly boosted. It is reported that merely less than half of the children and youngsters in Fuzhou are able to speak this language.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that Foochowese is currently widely spoken among some native speakers as an "endearing" language. Speaking Foochowese in Fuzhou often allows mutual speakers a certain level of familiarity. Even though Mandarin Chinese is more often heard in casual conversations on the city streets, the careful observer will notice that in more communal settings, such as small neighborhoods in the city or the surrounding countryside, Foochowese is often the dominant language.
In Mainland China, Foochowese has been officially listed as Intangible Cultural Heritage and its promotion work is being systematically carried out. In Matsu, Taiwan, the teaching of Foochowese has been successfully introduced into elementary schools, alongside the Taiwanese localization movement.
| Name | Tone contour | Description | Example |
| Ĭng-bìng (陰平) | 55 | high level | 君 |
| Siōng-siăng (上聲) | 33 | middle level | 滾 |
| Ĭng-ké̤ṳ (陰去) | 213 | low falling and rising | 貢 |
| Ĭng-ĭk (陰入) | 24 | middle rising stopped | 谷 |
| Iòng-bìng (陽平) | 53 | high falling | 群 |
| Iòng-ké̤ṳ (陽去) | 242 | middle rising and falling | 郡 |
| Iòng-ĭk (陽入) | 5 | high level stopped | 掘 |
The sample characters are taken from the Qī Lín Bāyīn.
In Qī Lín Bāyīn, the Foochowese is described as having eight tones, which explains how the book got its title (Bāyīn means "eight tones"). That name, however, is somewhat misleading, because Ĭng-siōng (陰上) and Iòng-siōng (陽上) are identical in tone contour; therefore, only seven tones exist.
Ĭng-ĭk and Iòng-ĭk (or so-called entering tonal) characters are ended with either velar stop [k] or Glottal stop .
Besides those seven tones listed above, two new tonal values, "21" (Buáng-ĭng-ké̤ṳ, 半陰去) and "35" (Buáng-iòng-ké̤ṳ, 半陽去) also occur in connected speech (see Tonal sandhi below).
The two-character tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below:
| Ĭng-bìng (陰平, 55) |
Iòng-bìng (陽平, 53) Iòng-ĭk (陽入, 5) | Shǎngshēng (上聲, 33) |
Ĭng-ĭk (陰去, 213) Iòng-ké̤ṳ (陽去, 242) Ĭng-ĭk (陰入, 24) | |
|
Ĭng-bìng (陰平, 55) Ĭng-ké̤ṳ (陰去, 213) Iòng-ké̤ṳ (陽去, 242) Ĭng-ĭk-ék (陰入乙, 24) | | | | |
|
Iòng-bìng (陽平, 53) Iòng-ĭk (陽入, 5) | | | | |
|
Siōng-siăng (上聲, 33) Ĭng-ĭk-gák (陰入甲, 24) | | | | |
Ĭng-ĭk-gák (陰入甲) are Ĭng-ĭk (陰入) characters with glottal stop and Ĭng-ĭk-ék (陰入乙) with /k/.
However, the tonal sandhi rules of more than two characters are much more complicated than can be conveniently displayed in a single table.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palato- alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | /m/ (蒙) | /n/ (日) | /ŋ/ (語) | |||
| Plosive | aspiration | /pʰ/ (波) | /tʰ/ (他) | /kʰ/ (氣) | ||
| plain | /p/ (邊) | /t/ (低) | /k/ (求) | /ʔ/ (鶯) | ||
| Fricative | /β/ | /s/ (時) | /ʒ/ | /h/ (喜) | ||
| Affricate | aspiration | /tsʰ/ (出) | ||||
| plain | /ts/ (曾) | |||||
| Lateral | /l/ (柳) | |||||
The Chinese characters in the brackets are also sample characters from Qī Lín Bāyīn.
Most Chinese linguists argue that Foochowese should be described as possessing a null onset. In fact, any character that has a null onset begins with a glottal stop [ʔ].
Some speakers find it difficult to distinguish between the initials /n/ and /l/].
No such labiodental phonemes as /f/ or /v/ exist in Foochowese, which is one of the most conspicuous characteristics shared by all branches in the Min Family, as well as Korean and Japanese.
[β] and [ʒ] exist in connected speech (see Initial assimilation below) only.
| The Coda of the Former Character | The Initial Assimilation of the Latter Character |
| Null coda or /-ʔ/ |
|
| /-ŋ/ |
/p/ and /pʰ/ change to [m];
|
| /-k/ | Any initials remain unchanged. |
The table below shows the eleven vowel phonemes of Foochowese.
| front | back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | ||
| Close | /i/ | /y/ | /u/ |
| Close-mid | /e/ | /ø/ | /o/ |
| Open-mid | /ɛ/ | /œ/ | /ɔ/ |
| Open | /a/ | /ɑ/ | |
In Foochowese codas /-m/, /-n/, and /-ŋ/ have all merged as /-ŋ/; and /-p/, /-t/, /-k/ have all merged as /-ʔ/. Eleven vowel phonemes, together with the codas /-ŋ/ and /-ʔ/, are organized into forty-six rimes.
| Simple Vowels | (蝦 or 罷) | (街 or 細) | (驢 or 告) | (哥 or 抱) | (喜 or 氣) | (苦 or 怒) | (豬 or 箸) | ||||||||
| Compound Vowels | (寫 or 夜) | (雞 or 毅) | (秋 or 笑) | (花 or 話) | (科 or 課) | (橋 or 銳) | (紙 or 再) | (郊 or 校) | (溝 or 構) | (催 or 罪) | (我 or 怪) | (杯 or 歲) | |||
| Nasal Coda /-ŋ/ | (三 or 汗) | (人 or 任) | (春 or 鳳) | (銀 or 頌) | (驚 or 命) | (天 or 見) | (歡 or 換) | (王 or 象) | (鄉 or 樣) | (恒 or 硬) | (湯 or 寸) | (桶 or 洞) | |||
| Glottal Coda /-ʔ/ | (盒 or 鴨) | (扔 or 嗝) | (漬 or 咩) | (樂 or 閣) | (力 or 乙) | (勿 or 福) | (肉 or 竹) | (擲 or 察) | (熱 or 鐵) | (活 or 法) | (月 or 郭) | (藥 or 弱) | (賊 or 黑) | (學 or 骨) | (讀 or 角) |
As has been mentioned above, there are theoretically two different entering tonal codas in Foochowese: /-k/ and /-ʔ/. But for most Foochowese speakers, those two codas are only distinguishable when in the tonal sandhi or initial assimilation. Therefore, most Chinese linguists think that the codas /-k/ and /-ʔ/ has merged together.
For instance, "福" (hók) is a Ĭng-ĭk character and is pronounced as [houʔ24] and "州" (ciŭ) a Ĭng-bìng character with the pronunciation of [tsiu55]. When these two characters combine into the word "福州" (Hók-ciŭ, Fuzhou), "福" changes its tonal value from "24" to "21" and, simultaneously, shifts its rime from [-ouʔ] to [-uʔ], so the phrase is pronounced as . While in the word "中國" (Dṳ̆ng-guók, China), "中" is a Ĭng-bìng character and therefore its close rime never changes, though it does change its tonal value from "55" to "53" in the tonal sandhi.
The phenomenon of close/open rimes is unique to Foochowese and this feature makes it especially intricate and hardly intelligible even to other Min languages.
The majority of Foochowese vocabulary dates back to more than 1,200 years ago. Some daily-used words are even preserved as they were in Tang Dynasty, which can be illustrated by a poem of a famous Chinese poet Gu Kuang (顧況). In his poem Jiǎn (囝), Gu Kuang explicitly noted:
In Foochowese, "囝" (giāng) and "郎罷" (nòng-mâ) are still in use today, without any slightest change.
This table shows some Foochowese words from Classical Chinese, as contrasted to Mandarin Chinese:
| Meaning | Foochowese | Foochow Romanized | Mandarin | Pinyin |
| eye | 目睭/目珠 | mĕ̤k-ciŭ ([møyʔ5 tsiu55]) | 眼睛 | yǎnjīng |
| you | 汝 | nṳ̄ ([ny33]) | 你 | nǐ |
| chopstick | 箸 | dê̤ṳ ([tøy242]) | 筷子 | kuàizi |
| to chase | 逐 | dṳ̆k ([tyʔ5]) | 追 | zhuī |
| to look, to watch | 覷 | ché̤ṳ ([tsʰøy213]) | 看1 | kàn |
| wet | 潤 | nóng ([nouŋ213]) | 濕 | shī |
| black | 烏 | ŭ ([u55]) | 黑 | hēi |
| to feed | 豢 | huáng ([huɑŋ213]) | 養² | yǎng |
And this table shows some words that are both used in Foochowese and Mandarin Chinese, while the meanings in Mandarin Chinese have altered:
| Word | Foochow Romanized | Meaning in Classical Chinese and Foochowese | Pinyin | Meaning in Mandarin |
| 走 | cāu ([tsau33]) | to flee | zǒu | to walk |
| 細 | sá̤ ([sɑ213]) | tiny, small, young | xì | thin, slender |
| 湯 | tŏng ([tʰouŋ55]) | hot water | tāng | soup |
| 說 | suók/siók ([suɔʔ24]) | to explain, to clarify | shuō | to speak, to talk |
| 懸 | gèng ([keiŋ53]) | tall, high, salty | xuán | to hang, to suspend (v.) |
| 喙 | chói ([tsʰui213]) | mouth | huì | beak |
| Word | Foochow Romanized | Meaning |
| 骹 | kă ([kʰa55]) | foot and leg |
| 囝 | giāng ([kiaŋ33]) | son, child, whelp, a small amount |
| 睏 | káung ([kʰɑuŋ33]) | to sleep |
| 骿 | piăng ([pʰiaŋ55]) | back, dorsum |
| 儂 | nè̤ng ([nøyŋ53]) | human |
| 厝 | chuó/chió ([tsʰuɔ53]) | home, house |
| 刣 | tài ([thai53]) | to kill, to slaughter |
| 徛 | kiê ([khiɛ242]) | to stand |
| 歞 | ngâung ([ŋɑuŋ242]) | stupidity, idiocy |
| 伓 | ng ([ŋ]) | not (negative prefix, never used separately) |
This table displays some widely used characters in Foochowese which have both literary and colloquial readings:
| Character | Literary reading | Phrase | Meaning | Colloquial reading | Phrase | Meaning |
| 行 | hèng [heiŋ53] | 行李 hèng-lī | luggage | giàng [kiaŋ53] | 行墿 giàng-duô | to walk |
| 生 | sĕng [seiŋ55] | 生態 sĕng-tái | zoology, ecology | săng [saŋ55] | 生囝 săng-giāng | childbearing |
| 江 | gŏng [kouŋ55] | 江蘇 Gŏng-sŭ | Jiangsu | gĕ̤ng [køyŋ55] | 閩江 Mìng-gĕ̤ng | Min River |
| 百 | báik [pɑiʔ24] | 百科 báik-kuŏ | encyclopedical | báh [pɑʔ24] | 百姓 báh-sáng | common people |
| 飛 | hĭ [hi55] | 飛機 hĭ-gĭ | aeroplane | buŏi [pui55] | 飛鳥 buŏi-cēu | flying birds |
| 寒 | hàng [haŋ53] | 寒食 Hàng-sĭk | Cold Food Festival | gàng [kaŋ53] | 天寒 tiĕng gàng | cold, freezing |
| 廈 | hâ [hɑ242] | 大廈 dâi-hâ | mansion | â [ɑ242] | 廈門 Â-muòng | Amoy (Xiamen) |
Most of the characters of Foochowese stem from Ancient Chinese and can therefore be written in Chinese characters. Many books published in Qing Dynasty have been written in this traditional way, such as Mǐndū Biéjì (閩都別記, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-dŭ Biék-gé) and the Bible in Foochowese. However, Chinese characters as the writing system for Foochowese do have many shortcomings.
Firstly, a great number of characters are unique to Foochowese, so that they can only be written in informal ways. For instance, the character "mâ̤", a negative word, has no common form. Some write it as "賣" or "袂", both of which share with it an identical pronunciation but has a totally irrelevant meaning; and others prefer to use a newly-created character combining "勿" and "會", but this character is not included in most fonts.
Secondly, Foochowese has been excluded from the educational system for many decades. As a result, many if not all take for granted that Foochowese does not have a formal writing system and when they have to write it, they tend to misuse characters with a similar Mandarin Chinese enunciation. For example, "會使 (â̤ sāi)", meaning "okay", are frequently written as "阿塞" because they are uttered almost in the same way.
Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê (平話字, BUC for short) or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê (福州話羅馬字), is a romanized orthography for Foochowese adopted in the middle of 19th century by American and English missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized several decades later. Foochow Romanized was mainly used inside of Church circles, and was taught in some Mission Schools in Fuzhou.
Mǐnqiāng Kuàizì (閩腔快字, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-kiŏng Kuái-cê), literally meaning "Fujian Colloquial Fast Characters", is a Qieyin System (切音系統) for Foochowese designed by Chinese scholar and calligrapher Li Jiesan (力捷三) in 1896.